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Genealogía del islamismo
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160 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1995
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About the author
Olivier Roy
89 books198 followersA professor at the European University Institute in Florence (Italy); he was previously a research director at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) and a lecturer for both the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS) and the Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris (IEP).
From 1984 to 2008, he has acted as a consultant to the French Foreign Ministry.
In 1988, Roy served as a United Nations Office for Coordinating Relief in Afghanistan (UNOCA) consultant.
Beginning in August 1993, Roy served as special OSCE representative to Tajikistan until February 1994, at which time he was selected as head of the OSCE mission to Tajikistan, a position he held until October 1994.
Roy received an "Agrégation" in Philosophy and a Master's in Persian language and civilization in 1972 from the French Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales.
In 1996, he received his PhD in Political Science from the IEP.
Roy is the author of numerous books on subjects including Iran, Islam, Asian politics. These works include Globalized Islam: The search for a new ummah, Today's Turkey: A European State? and The Illusions of September 11.
He also serves on the editorial board of the academic journal Central Asian Survey.
His best-known book, L'Echec de l'Islam politique; The Failure of Political Islam. It is a standard text for students of political Islam.
Roy wrote widely on the subject of the 2005 civil unrest in France saying they should not be seen as religiously inspired as some commentators said.
His most recent work is Secularism Confronts Islam (Columbia, 2007). The book offers a perspective on the place of Islam in secular society and looks at the diverse experiences of Muslim immigrants in the West. Roy examines how Muslim intellectuals have made it possible for Muslims to live in a secularized world while maintaining the identity of a "true believer."
From 1984 to 2008, he has acted as a consultant to the French Foreign Ministry.
In 1988, Roy served as a United Nations Office for Coordinating Relief in Afghanistan (UNOCA) consultant.
Beginning in August 1993, Roy served as special OSCE representative to Tajikistan until February 1994, at which time he was selected as head of the OSCE mission to Tajikistan, a position he held until October 1994.
Roy received an "Agrégation" in Philosophy and a Master's in Persian language and civilization in 1972 from the French Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales.
In 1996, he received his PhD in Political Science from the IEP.
Roy is the author of numerous books on subjects including Iran, Islam, Asian politics. These works include Globalized Islam: The search for a new ummah, Today's Turkey: A European State? and The Illusions of September 11.
He also serves on the editorial board of the academic journal Central Asian Survey.
His best-known book, L'Echec de l'Islam politique; The Failure of Political Islam. It is a standard text for students of political Islam.
Roy wrote widely on the subject of the 2005 civil unrest in France saying they should not be seen as religiously inspired as some commentators said.
His most recent work is Secularism Confronts Islam (Columbia, 2007). The book offers a perspective on the place of Islam in secular society and looks at the diverse experiences of Muslim immigrants in the West. Roy examines how Muslim intellectuals have made it possible for Muslims to live in a secularized world while maintaining the identity of a "true believer."
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January 8, 2019
The French political scientist Olivier Roy in the 1990s and 2000’s was an authoritative voice on Islam as a political and social phenomenon, and certainly on the radicalization that has been under way for almost 50 years in the Muslim world. This little book dates from 1995 and was given an additional foreword when republished in 2002, after Nine-eleven.
The merit of Roy is that he convincingly proves that Islamism is primarily a political response to the confrontation of the Muslim world with the modernity that was introduced by the Western countries by force (through colonialism), and which is still maintained by the support for usually corrupt, authoritarian regimes. This new radicalism therefore is at odds with traditional fundamentalism, which is simply a conservative-reactionary movement that has existed for centuries in Islam, and which is usually confined to the moral-legal domain.
That distinction is certainly enlightening and relevant, at least up to the 1990s, but this booklet also proves that it has not been that relevant any more since then. Roy himself acknowledges that the latest radical movements - which he describes as neo-fundamentalism - again focus on the moral-legal domain and put a heavy emphasis on identity, with elements like the headscarf and sharia. But precisely because neo-fundamentalism remains more in the cultural sphere (and much less in the political), it is also more local-tribal-ethnically or nationally bound, and thus more fragmented. There is no International of Islam, and it will never come, according to Roy, Islamism has proven to be a failed project.
Now, that is strange, because what with the emergence of Al Quaida or IS/Daesh, since the end of the 1990s? Strictly speaking these were or are of course not real international organizations, but their cosmopolitan image effectively did resonate in the broad Muslim world, and inspired many terrorist acts. In his foreword for this 2002-edition, Roy argues that the new Islamic terror movements are in their turn an answer to the globalization that has been introduced in the 1980s. And of course, that is partly true, but this view doesn’t really satisfy me. There’s more to it, I guess.
In the final chapter Roy certainly asks relevant questions: is Islam a threat for western civilization or not, and is Islam reformable or not? Are Islamism and neo-fundamentalism logical consequences of the core-message of the Coran, or are they (temporary) deformations of islam? He gives a short outline of the debate and the polarisation that is going on about these issues. But it’s a pity Roy only partially answers these questions, and in a rather hasty and superficial way. So, all in all, this book seems to me to be rather out of date and not to offer many relevant insights anymore.
The merit of Roy is that he convincingly proves that Islamism is primarily a political response to the confrontation of the Muslim world with the modernity that was introduced by the Western countries by force (through colonialism), and which is still maintained by the support for usually corrupt, authoritarian regimes. This new radicalism therefore is at odds with traditional fundamentalism, which is simply a conservative-reactionary movement that has existed for centuries in Islam, and which is usually confined to the moral-legal domain.
That distinction is certainly enlightening and relevant, at least up to the 1990s, but this booklet also proves that it has not been that relevant any more since then. Roy himself acknowledges that the latest radical movements - which he describes as neo-fundamentalism - again focus on the moral-legal domain and put a heavy emphasis on identity, with elements like the headscarf and sharia. But precisely because neo-fundamentalism remains more in the cultural sphere (and much less in the political), it is also more local-tribal-ethnically or nationally bound, and thus more fragmented. There is no International of Islam, and it will never come, according to Roy, Islamism has proven to be a failed project.
Now, that is strange, because what with the emergence of Al Quaida or IS/Daesh, since the end of the 1990s? Strictly speaking these were or are of course not real international organizations, but their cosmopolitan image effectively did resonate in the broad Muslim world, and inspired many terrorist acts. In his foreword for this 2002-edition, Roy argues that the new Islamic terror movements are in their turn an answer to the globalization that has been introduced in the 1980s. And of course, that is partly true, but this view doesn’t really satisfy me. There’s more to it, I guess.
In the final chapter Roy certainly asks relevant questions: is Islam a threat for western civilization or not, and is Islam reformable or not? Are Islamism and neo-fundamentalism logical consequences of the core-message of the Coran, or are they (temporary) deformations of islam? He gives a short outline of the debate and the polarisation that is going on about these issues. But it’s a pity Roy only partially answers these questions, and in a rather hasty and superficial way. So, all in all, this book seems to me to be rather out of date and not to offer many relevant insights anymore.
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